CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat Wednesday denied reports of divide in the party leadership, and said the party will adopt a new political-tactical line soon.
Speaking after the conclusion of a four-day discussion at the central committee of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the party's top decision-making body, Karat said the new political resolution will be finalised after "due consultations and discussing the review report".
"The CPI-M will adopt a new political-tactical line. We will come out with a resolution soon," he said.
"We will adopt it in the next central committee meeting, after we get suggestions and amendments are made to the draft."
"We will undertake an in-depth review and adopt the new political line," he said.
Asked about the reported differences within the CPI-M, Karat said: "Some of the stories in the media are highly misleading."
A brainstorming session of the party's central committee, which started Sunday, debated the impact of the political-tactical line adopted at the CPI-M's Jalandhar Congress in 1978.
As per this line, the CPI-M was to take the lead in forming a broad anti-Congress forum of secular, democratic parties, and also isolate the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Party leader Sitaram Yechury, however, moved an "alternative document" to the draft review report finalised by the politburo. Yechury's document, sources say, rejects the conclusions made in the draft report presented by Karat.
According to party sources, with the BJP-led government in Delhi, a section of the central committee members feel it would have to adopt a new political-tactical line to regain strength as they describe the ruling dispensation as communal, and backed by corporates.
The Left Front won 53 seats in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, but the tally dipped to 33 in 1984. It went up to 52 in 1989 and to 57 in 1991.
It again slipped to 52 in 1996 and further to 48 and 47 in 1998 and 1999, respectively, before climbing again to a record 59 in the 2004 battle which brought the Congress back to power.
After the loss of West Bengal, the Left strength in the Lok Sabha plunged to 24 in 2009. In the 16th Lok Sabha, elected in May 2014, the CPI-M has only nine members.
